Lesson 6

When you create a composition in After Effects it is empty so when you create
text your text is placed over whatever is underneath it. This could be a still, a
video or anything. If you want a solid c olour, select Layer>New>Solid or�
(ctrl) Y. Then select the colour you want your solid to be.

Text itself, is created on its own text layer.

You can also create a text layer in Photoshop and import the file as a
composition, place it in a composition and with it selected choose the option
Convert To Editable Text in the Layer menu.

Text, in After Effects, is initially accessed by clicking on the Text tool in the tool
panel.

Like many other tools in this palette there is more than one flavour to this tool.
Click and hold down on the text tool and the other option (vertic al text tool shows
itself).

If you just click once in the viewer window, a flashing cursor appears and you can
type in your text from that point.

By clicking and dragging across an area in the viewer window, you create a text
box into which your text will be fitted. Text created in this box will automatically fit
itself to the window. ie: a soft return will be added automatically to stop a word
at the end of a line being broken by the edge of the box.

If the Auto Open Panels option is ticked in the tool palette then when you select
the text tool, the two palettes that apply to text open automatic ally. If they don't
appear select them from the Window menu.

Though there is (as you might expect) a preset Text workspace.

When you select the Text workspace make sure you
can see the whole of the two panels used for
controlling text. You should be able to see panels like
these: Character and Paragraph

After Effects draws its fonts from the fonts directories of your computer.
Therefore, if you can't find the font you want, it's possible to find fonts online or
even design your own with font designing software. However, if your footage is
destined for viewing on a television, it is wise not to use fonts with fine features.
Almost any font named serif or that is refined or old fashioned looking might not
show up well on a video screen and is likely to flicker. Fonts like this are
designed for printing.

The section at the top right of the Character panel selects the colours for the
stroke (outline) of the text and the fill (interior) colours of your text. There is an
eye dropper tool for you to choose any colour from any of your media. Doubl�
clicking on the fill and stroke boxes will bring up the colour picker dialogue.

The curved double arrow switched the colours selected between fill and stroke.
The box with the red line through it selects transparent, and the black and white
boxes select black and white.

--- ---------
The options in the middle (currently set to Stroke Over Fill in the image
above) control whether the stroke is placed above or below the fill. The box to
its left (shown as 1 px) designated how thick the stroke (outline) of the text is.

The boxes at the bottom of this palette contain the text type buttons:

The two on the left toggle faux bold and faux italic. If the font you have selected
doesn't have bold or italic options, you can apply these 'pseudo' versions of
these text types.

The two boxes in the middle toggle all characters as caps or large and small
caps.

The two options on the right make your text superscript and subscript.

The Paragraph panel gives you similar controls to your paragraph layout as you
would have in Word or Illustrator.

The boxes on the left at the top apply to paragraph alignment (left, centre and
right).

The middle boxes at the top justify your text so that the last line in the paragraph
hangs to the left right or centre. The last box at the top, justifies all your text to fit
it's layer.

The options below add margins around your text with the numbers of pixels sizes
that you specify.

Write some text and try changing any of the properties above mentioned.

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It is a good idea (if you are aming for your work to be shown on a television) to
switch on the Title/Action Safe guides. Footage that gets shown on television
screens can be cropped off, so your titles and action should fall within these
boxes.

Click on the icon at the bottom of the viewer window and select Title/Action
Safe from the dropdown menu.

When you create your text layer, it will automatically be named whatever your text is.

The Transform properties are identical to any other layers properties - though
remember that these properties apply to the text layer as a whole.

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Options that relate more specifically to text are available in the Text properties.

If you want to change the text part way through the composition click the
stopwatch next to Source Text. Then at points along the timeline use the text tool
to change the text in the window to your new text. When you run the animation
the text will snap to the new text at each of your keyframes.
To animate your text along a path: Select the pen tool [G] and draw a nice curvy
shape but don't close it like when you are making masks.
Make sure to have your text layer selected otherwise you will create a new shape
layer instead!
Click on the path dropdown in the text properties and select the name of the
mask shape that you have created. I've called my shape "pathline" by selecting
the mask in the timeline, pressing return and entering a new name.

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The Grouping Alignment property acts a little like an anchor point does
for layers. It moves the point where the text is connected to the path

'v'" More Options

Anchor Point Grouping [ All
Grouping Alignment
Fill & Stroke ( Per Charact ... I•]
Inter-Character Blending (iilorma.f I •)
Here I have changed the anchor point grouping to ALL and shifted grouping's
alignment point by 93 percent.

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You can animate your text at yet a deeper level still through the use of Animate
and Range Selection properties. Click on the Animate arrow and select a
property that you want to animate. Scale is a good one to start with.

When you add an animator, you get a

selection of tools to add animation to
sequences of characters or words.

First off is the Range Selector. This is the

property that dictates which parts of your
text are to be affected.
Here I've decreased Scale to 55%
Only the first 10% of the text is affected
The Offset is keyed at 8% in frame 1 to
100% at 3 secs, creating scale reduction
animated through each character

Try adjusting the Offset (how much of the text is affected stays the same) and set key
frames. If you start with 8% offset and end with 100% (as example above) then 10% of the
text line will be scaled and this will move along the text from 8 to 100% of the whole
animation.

Notice when you drag the start and stop values in

the range selector little red handles appear in your
text to show you where the start and end of your
selection are (eg Scale)

Once you have selected a range try sliding the scale values to see how they affect
your range. I've increased the scale here by 186%.

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 Twirl down the advanced properties and try playing with the Shape values

These create nice variations in scale over the range of your text.

Like with the anchor point grouping (discussed above) the animator can be
based on characters (including or not spaces), words or the complete text by
selecting the appropriate option from the Based On option.

Randomize does what it says on the packet and randomises the animation
values over the selection. The amount of randomness is limited by the Random
Seed setting when you choose to randomise your animator.

Obviously you can spend a lot of time fiddling with and animating these
animators, and yet more options can be added to the above mentioned by using
the Add command (see below).

Scale
Sl<ew
Rotation
=a OpiKity

B All Transform Prnpen:ies

Add:
fiij ColOf
RCB
Stroke Wr<lth Hue
Saturat.ion
Tradmg Enghtness
line Anchor
line Spacing

Character Of1set
Cha,acter Yalu�

----.:---:--;--,-,-;--::-._,..,..,.,JI Blur
!SI Mod
_ �r ';J
-__l-·
._._·

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More examples to try from Adobe's After Effects User Guide

eg Writing text on using the Opacity property:

1. Create a new composition.
2. Create a text layer with the characters 01234.
3. Choose Animation > Animate Text > Opacity.
4. Set Opacity to 0%.
5. Expand the Range Selector 1 and click the stopwatch icon
for Start.
6. In the Composition panel, drag the start selector to the left
edge of the text (the value will be at 0).
7. Move the current-time indicator to 3 seconds and drag the
start selector in the Composition panel to the right edge of
the text.
8. Preview the composition.
However, if you want to see how the pros animate stuff and adjust their work to fit
your own means, there are a huge number of preset animations for text in After
Effects.

After Effects opens Adobe Bridge by selecting Browse Presets from the
Animation menu, so you need to have Bridge installed for this.

Go to Animation>Browse Presets

Once Bridge has opened you will see a folder for Text with a vast array of
different types of text animation folders inside.

Pick one of the folders and click on a Preset. You will see an animated preview
of the preset in the top right-hand corner of the screen